Geographic and Gender Bias in Peer Review of Applications Submitted to the Swiss National Science Foundation

João Martins,1 François Delavy,1 Anne Jorstad,1 Matthias Egger1

Objective The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the leading public research funder in Switzerland, relies on external experts to review grant applications. Applicants can propose reviewers, provided there are no obvious conflicts of interests. On average, applications receive 3 reviews, 1 of which is typically from a reviewer proposed by the applicants. We examined whether the source of the review, the gender of the principle applicant and the reviewer, and the country of affiliation of reviewers influenced the scores given to grant applications submitted to the SNSF.

Design Reviewers scored applications from 1 (poor) to 6 (outstanding). We calculated mean scores by source of reviewers (applicant vs SNSF), country of affiliation of reviewers (Switzerland vs international), and gender of applicants and reviewers. We fit a multivariable linear regression model adjusting for all these variables plus calendar year of submission, discipline (21 disciplines), and applicants’ age (5 age classes) and affiliation (4 institution types).

Conclusions Applications received higher scores from applicant-proposed reviewers and lower scores from Swiss-based experts. Scores were lower for applications submitted by female applicants. Our results are compatible with a positive bias of reviewers chosen by the applicant, or a negative bias of experts based in Switzerland, and cannot exclude bias against female applicants. Interestingly, female reviewers consistently scored applications lower than male reviewers, independent of the applicant’s gender. Panels making funding decisions should be aware of these potential biases. Given the association between scores and source of reviewer, the SNSF no longer accepts reviewers proposed by the applicants.